answers to questions.doc

Media Monitoring Services Answers to Questions

1. When submitting proposals which options are preferred, the direct route or the partner path?

a. Vendors may submit the direct route, the partner path, or both.

2. In the RFP Technical Factors, you mention "references" for past performance. Is this required at the proposal stage? If so, how many references are needed and what information?

a. Yes, providing “references” at the proposal stage is required. Three are requested with a maximum of five. The information from past references should address contractors experience in providing the services and reports as explained in the SOW and the contact information of the person/company that provides the reference.

3. Understanding that search keywords may be revised, can you provide the exact search keywords that would need to be monitored?

a. Exact search words are provided below, however, the government requires the ability to change that search string at any time, as often as necessary, without incurring additional costs.

Key search terms are: FEMA, Federal Emergency Management Agency, emergency exercise(s), emergency management, emergency, preparedness, emergency response, Citizen Corps, earthquake(s), flood(s), hurricane(s), storm(s), tornado(s/es), volcano(es), wildfire(s), Are You Ready? Cerro Grande, chemical stockpile preparedness, disaster, disaster recovery, early warning system(s), EBS, Emergency Broadcasting System, emergency food and shelter, Fire Administration, fire grants, fire management assistance, first responders, flood and elevation, Flood Insurance, flood map, flood mapping, Homeland Security grants, incident management, long-term recovery, MERS, mitigation, NRCC, National Fire Academy, National Response Plan, NFIP , nuclear and chemical hazards, PDM grants , pre-disaster mitigation, radiological emergency preparedness, urban search and rescue and USFA .

4. Understanding that daily reports will be emailed to multiple recipients, how many users need direct access to the online portal/archive?

a. Current recipients with direct access to the Bulletin News site are Brian Glaviano, Cheria Brown, Terry Monrad and Kenneth E Washington. We need to have the ability to add (and remove) more recipients at any time without incurring extra costs.

5. Understanding that you need "measurement tools" to "identify the tonal quality", is tone to be assigned by the vendor? OR does this RFP require only tools for FEMA users to assign tone?

a. It is preferred that tonal quality will be assigned by the vendor measuring positive, negative and neutral in article tone as part of the media monitoring process.

6. The RFP requires "measurement tools" to compare media coverage of FEMA with "other federal agencies". How does FEMA want this information delivered? And what other federal agencies?

a. Both as raw data and expressed through Excel spreadsheets, pie charts accessible via customized, online tools that can be downloaded into various formats and graphical images. We can provide a list that limits this to no more than 10 users with the ability to change the list as situations dictate.

7. Does FEMA require actual scanned Print Articles?

a. No. FEMA requires the text of the story and a hyperlink to the actual page of the story. Scans of each story can impede email distribution traffic.

8. Does FEMA require Preview Video for Broadcast Coverage?

a. No.

9. Does FEMA require High Resolution (downloadable video or DVD)? If so, how many?

a. No.

10. Cross media types, does FEMA require monitoring of all outlets available in North America? US only? OR is there a top tier of media outlets/scope that FEMA requires?

a. Current requirements for media monitoring products include print, broadcast, cable and social media from the US media only. Media monitoring for international media coverage is not necessary or encouraged in this contract.

11. Is there an incumbent? If yes, who is the incumbent?

a. Yes. The incumbent is Bulletin News.

12. The solicitation appears to leave the number of hours to bid open to each offeror. Because the number of hours will drive the contract ceiling value and allow the government to perform an apples to apples comparisons across offerors. Please validate that we should bid our best guess of the number of hours needed to effectively perform the work, or will the government stipulate the number of hours to propose? Specifically, the number of hours for surge coverage.

a. Surge hours are difficult to predetermine; potential vendors need to provide own estimate and pricing for that.

Media Monitoring

& Clips

13. How will the costs for the subscription / licensing fees for the online media clips database be structured?

a. There should be no subscription licensing fee. The existing media monitoring contract provides for unlimited use and storage of the clips.

14. How many past performance references does the government require?

a. Three are requested with a maximum of five.

15. Please clarify the statement, “Quality of Past Performance - This factor will allow the Government to determine the level of quality of past performance through references obtained from parties currently receiving services from the offeror.” Will the government be requiring references to submit a past performance questionnaire or will the government be contacting the references directly? If it is the former, please provide the questionnaire to be submitted.

a. The government will contact references directly.

16. Is the price quote a separate volume from the technical volume or a section within the technical volume? The price quote may be a separate document. Information included in the price quote will only be used to evaluate pricing and will not be considered in evaluating the technical evaluation, prior performance or past experience.

a. The price quote may be a separate document. Information included in the price quote will only be used to evaluate pricing and will not be considered in evaluating the technical evaluation, prior performance or past experience.

17. When does the Government anticipate an award?

a. Within 90 days.

18. Will there be a certain daily deadline for distributing the daily media monitoring reports to FEMA staff?

a. YES. Blackberry edition deadline is 7:00 am, 2nd edition 8:30 am. Weekend coverage when requested has the same deadline for FEMA News Clips only. White House and DHS News clips are not distributed over the weekend. White House Clips are sent by Bulletin News @ 5:30 am, DHS Clips are downloaded from Bulletin News website @ 7:30 am.

19. For the daily media monitoring reports to be distributed to FEMA staff via email – should they contain 1) simply links to coverage (either in their original format or in their archived state housed in the database), 2) excerpts of media coverage plus links or 3) full versions of the media coverage (e:g: PDF attachments of news articles, movie files with broadcast clips, etc.)?

a. Provide reports with full extracts, a link to the online story distributed in Word format (*.doc). Formatting necessities include a title synopsis at the top of a word document that hyperlinks to the full story below that includes a link to the internet. Not everyone has access to PDF attachments and FEMA IT policies prevent PDFs from being opened on blackberry devices, so Word format is preferred over PDF.

20. Should the media analysis report be provided on a daily basis as a supplement to the daily media monitoring reports or should they be provided at some other frequency?

a. Weekly and monthly are sufficient, however, we require the capability to generate our own reports when needed within the cycle for special events and incidents.

21. For the analysis component – the SOW document lists “narrative” as one possible reporting capability to be offered. Does FEMA have a preference on the length of this narrative? Should the narrative 1) analyze each particular news clipping individually; 2) provide a comprehensive summary of the day’s (or week’s) news coverage or 3) some combination of these two things?

a. The narrative should provide a sufficient summary (3-5 sentences) of articles that are positive, balanced, and negative, with individual ratings attributed to each article. Narrative would also be able to compare quantity and quality of coverage we receive on topics compared to other federal and NGO organizations. The media monitor will generally provide a synopsis of FEMA related Hot or Emerging Issues.

22. For the analysis component– will there be a defined list of other federal agencies that we should use to compare FEMA’s media coverage? Will it include only other DHS components? Will we need to change it at any given time? Will there ever be the potential for comparing coverage of FEMA to coverage of state and/or local governments, particularly in the context of crisis situations?

a. FEMA Public Affairs will define the list, and expects the ability to change the list of agencies as needed. It can include at times state or local governments. DHS and the White House are the other federal agencies that we use to compare FEMA’s media coverage.

23. Should the media metrics report be provided on a daily basis as a supplement to the daily media monitoring reports, or should they be provided at some other frequency?

a. Weekly and monthly are sufficient, however, we require the capability to generate our own reports when needed within the cycle for special events and incidents. Functionality should be through use of online tools to make a customized report on the spot.

24. By “nature of the audience reached”, are there specific qualities or demographic information that FEMA looking to know about its audience? (E:g: age, geography, education, etc.)

a. We request potential vendors provide an overview of the capabilities to assess the audience by various qualities/demographics.

25. For the “back up access” requirement, can we presume that some form of computer access would be available to FEMA staff at a field office to use a digital format accessible without the Internet (e:g: a CD-ROM) or should we presume no computer access would be available at all (which would require a combination of print, DVD and possible VHS formats)?

a. Backup access means that they ensure their system is not offline for long durations that will impact our ability to distribute media monitoring reports. Email is primary, online system is secondary. Fax is impractical due to large amounts of clips that can be in excess of 200 pages during a surge. The need for additional media such as DVD, CDs and VHS is not applicable, as we want to use online sources such as email and the internet to review media clips.

26. To enable FEMA’s continued archive access for an “unlimited time,” we would need to build in some type of ongoing licensing fee that FEMA would be required to pay even past the contract period to keep the media clipping service active, or their access would cease.

a. The government does not consider this ongoing fee to be an acceptable structure and is seeking access to clips provided with out a licensing fee as a separate amount. Upon termination of contract, provider will deliver hard copies of all archived information within 30 days.

27. What was the approximate volume of clips received within your online portal in 2008 (or within the last 12 months) and can you provide us with a rough breakdown by type? (I.e. 15,000 print, 10,000 broadcast, 20,000 Internet, 4,000 Blogs, etc.). (Knowing the approximate volumes of clips is an important factor in determining the most appropriate monitoring and measurement solutions and corresponding price points for a reasoned response to FEMA's RFQ.)

a. Normal estimation for the 1st edition volume range from 60-130 pages, 2nd edition volume is 25-100 pages. In an active hurricane season, volume has ranged from 250-300 pages. We currently do not receive a report from the current vendor providing such a breakdown. We request potential vendors provide a cost estimate for such service on a monthly basis to gauge where the volume of FEMA’s news coverage is coming from.

28. Given the fact that there are tens of thousands of mentions of the word FEMA including irrelevant or mere mentions and the sheer volume requires time for FEMA staff to review, would you be open to or interested in having these extraneous clips filtered out - in advance before you receive your daily report?

a. Yes, it is expected erroneous articles would be filtered by the contractor.

29. In just a sentence or two, can you give us some examples of any types of clips your communications department does not consider to be "relevant coverage" or type of clips you would want to archive ?" (I.e. Mere mentions of the name FEMA - weddings or obituaries mentioning that someone worked at FEMA, duplicate online and hard copy newspaper coverage of the same article, digital copies of every newspaper running the identical AP story, (as opposed to just the top 100 or a representative sample, continual repeats of the same broadcast coverage on a given network or station CNN, FOX or local affiliates), etc.

a. Media outlets with a circulation of less than 50,000 that are only disaster related, without reference to FEMA can be disregarded. All clips are archived by the media monitor. Only duplicate national stories regarding FEMA are preferred.

30. The RFQ states that you would like media values applied to your coverage. There are several levels of determining these values, some being considerably more accurate than others which are grossly inflated (i.e. Open Rate Cards Vs Simple AVE VS Calculated AVE). Which level would you prefer and how important is it that your metrics be as precise as possible?

a. We will consider different levels based on contractor description and cost for them.

31. How many total people will need individual access to the online system? If all users do not need to have access at the same time, would you consider "sharing" logins and/or passwords between 2 or more people to save cost?

a. We would consider sharing logins. Potential vendors should provide cost breakouts per amount of concurrent users.

32. Since there is a difference in accuracy between scoring media coverage with Ai Vs human intervention what would be your preference – assuming human oversight is somewhat more costly? Also, can you tell us if FEMA would be open to or comfortable with having its own team assign tonality to its clips via the Web Portal if audience and media values were already present?

a. Since the preference does include cost as a variable, vendors should provide their capabilities along with costs so we may determine the best value. If there was no cost, human intervention would be preferable. We will consider FEMA staff assigning tonality if values were already present, again based on all variable and value of offered services.

33. Does your current provider email a daily media report to you or do you create your own report using the tools and coverage provided by your current vendor? Are you anticipating the same process with any new provider you choose or would you prefer the provider compile the report?

a. Current vendor provides two editions of the daily News Clips via e-mail and internet access downloads for (DHS News Clips). FEMA’s media monitor specialist generates the media report for the agency by extracting FEMA related issues from the news clips provide by the contractor. We anticipate the same process with the new contract.

34. On a scale of 1-10 (10 being the best), how important is it to you that a provider have the best available or even unique communication measurement tools and processes available for your use as opposed to more traditional ones that may cost less and result in less accurate and actionable information and media analysis for FEMA? (If it is highly important, would FEMA’s budget allow for an additional expenditure for this service or would you be willing to compromise on one or more of your existing requirements to obtain it within the same budgetary parameters?

a. It is difficult to apply an objective rating (a number) to a subjective question (best available), especially without knowing the level of the “additional expenditure.” Do not want to compromise on other parameters. Will consider all levels of measurement based on a review of cost and performance to determine the best value for the government.

35. Assuming you were able to receive all your clips of your daily media coverage, and all other criteria was met by a provider, if offered the choice of either getting a more precise, more actionable and in-depth analysis of FEMA's coverage and communications success on a monthly basis (including, audience media values and tonality), OR receiving less accurate daily metrics for each individual clip, which would you prefer?

a. We want accurate and timely analysis. Vendors can offer cost breakdowns for providing that daily, weekly and monthly, however monthly analysis would be the least useful – we work in a tighter news cycle than that.

36. Is FEMA planning to do any public service announcements in 2009 or any type of ad campaign? If so, might your communications department be interested in incorporating a tool that can assess the impact of your earned media efforts on FEMA's paid (or public service) efforts and vice versa?

a. Not a requirement but would be interested in costs for such a function.

37. Are you OK with receiving video clips based on just closed captioning mentions of FEMA or do you need to see all your FEMA TV coverage (including non-captioned coverage)?

a. Do not require video clips.

38. Other than the incumbent provider, does FEMA subscribe directly to any other outside news service (such as Lexis/Nexis, Factiva or Burrelles/Luce that it might wish to incorporate into the overall evaluation of its media coverage by the chosen provider?

a. Vocus.

39. Can you give us any idea of the budgetary parameters we would be working with for this RFQ so that we can determine the most realistic and cost-effective solution and response?

a. The Government is unable to provide budgetary parameters.

40. 4(a) indicates that the contractor must “review” news from the listed source categories in order to prepare the daily report. Human review is significantly more accurate but also more costly than automated review based on software. Is FEMA open to a higher error rate ( inclusion of non-relevant stories and exclusion of relevant stories), if the cost structure is lower?

a. Yes.

41. 3(b) requires “comparisons of coverage between FEMA and other federal agencies”. Would a comparison between FEMA and other federal agencies only occur in instances where FEMA and the other federal agency(s) are mentioned in the same story? Or does FEMA intend to benchmark itself against all other federal agencies in a general sense? If the later, does FEMA consider this comparison “nice to have” or “must have” and would FEMA consider software automated scoring of the stories for tonality even if known to produce significantly less accurate data?

a. Latter. Nice to have, but want a cost comparison for the service with and without.

42. 3(c) requires a measure of advertising dollar equivalencies. Does FEMA consider negative news to have a positive ad-dollar equivalency? For example, let’s say two local television outlets in New Orleans were to each run 10-minute pieces largely focused on FEMA (and the “value” were $x,xxx for each report). If one story were overwhelmingly positive, and the other were equally negative, does FEMA consider each to have equal value, or does FEMA expect these two to cancel each other out?

a. I would say subscriber level, not advertising dollars determines value. 100,000 subscribers outweighs 52,000 subscribers.

43. The solicitation requires the contractor to monitor blogs and social networking sites. Mentions of FEMA, particularly in an emergency, are numerous and will vary widely in terms of quality and relevance, and the individual postings therein will range widely from important information from well-informed sources with broad readerships all the way down to mere passing references from a personal blog with few readers. Does FEMA have a specific list of blogs and networking sites to monitor? Within those sites, does FEMA wish to see all references to FEMA and emergencies, or is the contractor expected to review the individual posts to determine which posts have value?

a. Contractor is expected to determine value is the preference. A cost breakdown for both options is welcomed in the decision-making process.

44. The solicitation requires the contractor to monitor “multimedia”. Can FEMA provide an example of what multimedia means in the context of this proposal? For example, would “YouTube” qualify as such, and if so, what filter would FEMA want applied to a mention of FEMA appearing on such a site?

a. YouTube, Flick’r, Twitter, Facebook…. Any mention of FEMA, particularly relative to ongoing disasters or events.

45. FEMA has typically awarded its contracts on a firm-fixed basis. Is the current contract also intended to be firm fixed? a. That is the way to provide the information – a firm fixed with separate surge pricing structure. Regarding surge coverage, does FEMA have a preferred pricing model? For example, the contractor could provide a firm-fixed price for the base contract, and a daily rate for surge coverage. Or, if FEMA requires greater certainty of what it will pay for a year, the contractor could build in an assumed number of days of surge coverage and simply price that block of days in advance. Or does FEMA have another model it would prefer? a. No other model.

46. For the backup delivery mechanism specified in 4(c), would email and fax delivery satisfy the requirement? If not, what form of backup does FEMA prefer?

a. Email would satisfy.

47. I just wanted to inquire as to whether or not you would like to attach any examples or screenshots of our portal/results to the RFQ Response document. If they would be accepted, would you like them included in the actual document, or would you like to have them as a separate document. Many times the explanation of services is better understood with this supplement in order to provide a point of reference.

a. We welcome any visual screen that supports a showcase of services.

48. Is this a firm, fixed price contract?

a. Yes.

49. Does the program manager desire access to the application that is used to acquire the data? If so, how many concurrent users may need access?

a. Yes. With up to 5 concurrent users.

50. What time of day must the daily report be delivered to the program manager?

a. 5:30 am Monday- Friday. Same time for weekend coverage when requested.

51. Because logarithmic-based tonal analyses are often devoid of context, does the program manager require human-generated tonal content analyses?

a. Yes a human generated analysis is preferred.

52. How far back must media content that has not been archived within the system be available for retrieval?

a. As long as it does not incur and additional charge for storage we like to have access to media content for the duration of the contract.

53. Does Program Manager desire/require the ability to identify and target journalists and social media (bloggers) based on previous by-lined articles or postings?

a. Yes.

54. Does the program manager desire/require an inquiry management capability that would integrate the media monitoring service with the ability to manage inquiries from media and other stakeholders?

a. No.

55. Does the program manager desire/require the ability to not only pull media content but also to push content to traditional media (broadcast, print and online) as well as social media (twitter, etc.) and blogs?

a. No.

56. Does the program manager desire/require the ability to push content to multiple stakeholders via a public web site?

a. No.

57. Does the program manager desire/require the ability to create content in a virtual environment with various levels of approval controls?

a. No.

58. As the lead agency for managing information during incidents, does the program manager desire/require a web-based capability that would allow for unlimited users from multiple organizations and agencies to (1) monitor media, (2) push information to relevant stakeholders via multiple modes (e-mail, fax, sms/text-to-voice, web publishing), (3) create content with version control and various levels of approval, (4) allow for urgent notification via e-mail, sms/text-to-voice, fax or immediately publishing to a public web site, and (5) document all activities that can be retrieved for analysis of issues, trends and resource demands?

a. No.

59. Are you looking for just quantitative analysis (charts and graphs), or are you looking for a qualitative written analysis as well?

a. Both.

60. Can you expand on item 4.c in the Scope of Work? Can you provide one or more examples of what would be considered an acceptable backup? What other types of resources would be available?

a. Should there be an interruption with interned service the contractor will need a back up plan: Tape back up or the ability to fax over clips.

61. Is there an existing technology platform, system, or infrastructure (e.g. HSIN) that FEMA intends to maintain or leverage to provide the stated “online system” requirement?

a. Not a requirement.

62. Is archiving and access of multimedia content (e.g. audio and video files) required as part of the solution?

a. No.

63. If multimedia content archiving is required how does the government intend to address copyright impacts and potential costs?

a. No archiving service required.